I just joined this group and hope to find some help. I have 2 Toy Australian Shepherds. One of them, my little girl who is almost 4 years old, has a problem with loose stools. She will have a bowl movement which will be firm, then with minutes have a couple more movements (not as much) but each one gets looser ending with total diarrhea. Usually this happens in the late afternoon into early evening. It may happen 2 to 3 times a day. Over the 4 years we have had her on Biljac, Blue Buffalo, Hills D/D, Fromm's and she is Nature's Blend right now (of course, slowly introduced to the new food each time we changed). We have tried adding pumpkin to help eliminate the problem and also yogurt. We had her checked by the vet for worms, parasites or diseases and other than the loose stools, she is perfectly healthy. Our male has no problems with loose stools and he has changed foods with her each time. If anyone has had a similar experience with their pet and was able to eliminate the problem, we would appreciate hearing what you did!

Rgeurts

September 13th, 2011 12:08 AM

Hi and welcome to the board :)
We had a similar problem with one of ours. His issue is not a common one, but may be something to look into if you've exhausted all possibilities. It's called EPI (Endocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency). There are 3 digestive enzymes created by the pancreas. If any one of them (or all of them) are low, even the low normal range, it can cause issues. Our boy is deficient in Trypsin, then enzyme that digests protein. He has to be on a supplement called Pancreas-V. It's rather expensive though, $70 for a 100 gram bottle. It's a powdered Porcupine pancreas. It digests the food before he eats. There are several different symptoms. His were loose stools that looked like "cow pies". They were very light in color and he was literally starving to death. He would also throw up quite a bit as well. This is a link to a good website:

[url]http://www.epi4dogs.com/[/url]

After reading through it, if anything looks familiar, talk to your vet. A lot of the sites I have read said that "most" vets never think to test for it and it goes unnoticed in a large percentage of dogs. Luckily, our vet is a very bright lady and has years of experience with complicated dogs, so she thought of it right away. It's a simple blood test called a TLI (trypsin-like immunoreactivity) and requires a 12 hour fast, but that's about it. One other thing to consider is Colitis. Our old boy has had Colitis his whole life and has had trouble with diarrhea and constipation (rotating). We only got a diagnosis 2 years ago, and he's almost 12 now.

Hopefully you can figure out what's wrong and remedy it! Please let us know how things go, and pics are always welcome! :D

growler~GateKeeper

September 13th, 2011 02:14 AM

Did all the different foods have the same protein and or grain sources? ie all chicken based or all have corn?

Have you tried a grain-free food with a novel protein source one she hasn't had before? For example Orijen 6 fish etc

How are her morning poops?

Is she getting any treats in the evening that she's not in the morning?